Aren't you overreacting?

Today I've been very "gaspy" and can't stand for more than two or three minutes, which is what prompted me to actually do this. Combined with a bunch of dumbasses on facebook saying it's a fake, often adding that it's to take down Trump. 

(That will never work because they think he's More Awesome Than Jesus and also the evil ones never die.) 

(Hi Sharon W! Hi Brittany G! Hi Dave T! Hi Josh C! Hi Patrick S! Yep, totally calling out your bullshit.)

My Timeline (Symptoms & People We've Exposed)

March  2: This was the first day I was really tired. This Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday I had two cups of coffee every day at school. "Big deal: two cups of coffee!" I can hear you thinking. Well, it is when you don't. drink. coffee. I told my husband I was feeling the "hit by a truck" tired that usually comes before I come down sick.
Kazoo choir practices at lunch.

I do remember there were things before this though. The four year old already had a cough, and I'd had the dry cough a few times already. I just can't put a date on those. 

By this time, I've started to put off all kinds of menial tasks, especially at school, because I just can't focus.

B starts to ask if we should put 4 on her albuterol, but her lungs sound pretty clear.

March 4: The first thing I remember being Definitely Not Right was I ran a LITTLE bit, my usual walk 30, run 30, for about a half a mile. And my chest hurt exactly the same way it did when I tried to ride my bike to school and it turned out I had REALLY bad bronchitis. I start serious carb-loading and just. can't. stop. Weight watchers be damned!

March 5: The dry cough started consistently. A colleague from another district comes down to observe my school's GSA and speak with the other advisor and I. 

March 6: My son & husband flew out to visit family in SC. Since I had to take a personal day as there was no childcare for the four year old, we made a day of it! We were foiled in our attempt to get our favorite pizza in Columbus (Borgatta), but we spent an hour or so in Target, where 4 year old was GEEKED about finding a baseball cap with Disney Princesses, and then we played in COSI for several hours in Progress and Little Kid Space. 4 has been super into butterflies, so we watched the IMAX movie Flight of the Butterflies. It was great!!! She really just wanted to watch the butterflies, though, so I had plans to take her this weekend to Franklin Park Conservatory when they let their butterflies out.
We met friends at Gatti's Pizza for food & video games.

4 asked to start Harry Potter for the first time, so we read a part of the first chapter as well as a princess story out of a Disney anthology named Fantasyland that I adored when I was little. I know this part has nothing to do with COVID-19, but it is VERY important to me. 

Cancelled all other tentative plans with my friends for the weekend except maybe a cup of coffee at the Mighty Museum because I was just too tired.

March 7: We went to High Five Cakes and the Mighty Museum! Gotta entertain that preschooler and get in some quality time while the boys are out of town. We sat on a bench on the corner to enjoy the weather and eat the cupcakes (Death by Chocolate, the clear favorite for both of us). It was thoroughly wonderful, and it was kind of sweet to watch people in the nearby restaurants enjoy 4 almost as much as I do.

My cough continues to get worse. And maybe there's a fever? Nothing to pay attention to, I'm sure. 4's fever is iffier, however. We start daily shower-baths to help ease her breathing, and she has to choose several times every day whether she wants to blow her nose (an important skill she lacks) or if I pull out the Nose Frida.

We go to Walmart and the city park.

March 8: 4 goes to church, even though I don't want her to as she is clearly sick and sometimes has that fever. But I need the rest, so...

I start her on her albuterol; she takes it twice today with notable difference. We go to Kroger. I buy a TON of fruit & carrot juice because it all sounds good?  Not normal, HAHA.

March 9: 4 continues to go to her school, as I do mine. I go to choir rehearsal, surrounded by people who are 60+. I cough terribly the whole time, and finish my tea 45 minutes in. (Yes OBVIOUSLY I am coughing into my elbow, but I don't know how protective that REALLY is)

4 starts complaining her ear hurts while on her nebulizer, and as best I can see with the otoscope around her dislodged tube, she has an infection.

March 10: My mom takes 4 to the doctor. She has an ear infection, starts antibiotics. I have a meeting in the elementary school library, where I cough A Lot. 

March 11: We have a tornado drill at school, which means all of my library kids plus another classroom are crammed into my back room. I meet with a middle school teacher and cough all over his room for an hour. 

I start to feel like I definitely have a fever while talking to him, so I go to the main office to take my temperature. Yep. 100.9. I take the rest of the day off as sick after lunch and stay the heck away from my book club kids while they talk and eat. 
I take 2 pamprin, which are a godsend.

I sleep 1-4, then 7-5 when 4 wakes up again. My body aches are off the charts.
B, who is NOT the designated worrier in our family, insists I schedule time to see a doctor because it really sounds like COVID-19.

March 12: My fever still isn't subsiding and my body aches even more, so I make an appointment for the doctor. She determines I have bronchitis but says they won't swab me for COVID-19 based on the ODH's recommendations (no direct contact with someone intubated) because there are nowhere near enough tests. This I knew; in a press conference Dr. Acton said that there are 1500 tests in Ohio but that she knew there were at least 100,000 who have the disease already.
I ask to be swabbed for the flu since I know that needs done before I can be swabbed for COVID-19 anyway, and people may SAY that is mildly uncomfortable, but PEOPLE LIE. As someone whose eyes don't even water when I get a new piercing and my tattoo was a piece of cake, it was one of the most uncomfortable things I can recall.  (Granted, I can't really recall what it was like to give birth on the fly without any support, but it was probably worse.)
My sister goes to pick up my antibiotic and prednisone, I ask her to pick up a pulse-oximeter as well so I can keep an eye on that since I can't be tested for Covid-19. My ox levels are sticking around 98-100 today. 4 stays with me one last night since she is set up here and B & 9 returned from SC once she was already getting for bed. 9 reads a bedtime book to 4 because he has missed her. It is so adorable I cry.
My mom decides that since we're off school for three weeks, we should drive to Disney World. 

March 13: B picks up 4. I slept fitfully, maybe 4 or 5 hours? B calls ODH to demand a test for me, but basically I hear from Doc friend that it's just not going to happen. Doc and I compare notes; she definitely has the same thing on the same timeframe and it nearly certain it is also coronavirus. And she can't get tested, either.
My oxygen level sits around 95/96 most of the day, but sometimes goes back up to 97/98. 
At one point in the evening, I coughed and I felt like part of my lung popped back open, a feeling I had when I was on a nebulizer in the hospital once. It occurs to me that while I used to get frequent sinus infections, since about 2012 I get more frequent bronchitis and very few sinus infections. I wonder what changed?

As was mentioned earlier, I cry because if I die, 4 won't remember me. And I won't ever get to take her to meet the Princesses.

My body aches are improved by the end of the day. Disney World announces it is closed, so we can't drive there. Mom suggests we cancel our planned trip with our generational besties to see the cherry blossoms in DC, one of the many things left to do on my 40 Before 40 list.


March 14: I wake up blissfully late (almost 11!) but couldn't get to sleep until sometime after midnight anyway. My pulse/ox sits at 97 until I get out of bed around 11:30. Then it drops to 94. 

I'm coughing and gasping from when I first stand up for an hour and a half, and it feels fucking scary. 

I go take my prednisone and a mucinex that B picked up for me yesterday. 
I go take a shower, but I can't stand. I sit for most of it, and any time I lean on my left hand, it turns blue.

By 1:00, the meds have clearly kicked in because my p/ox is back up to 97 and I don't gasp as much when I cough, which is farther between. I still feel light-headed, though. And this is where I am now. Trying to decide if I call OSU to get myself on their radar? Wait and see how much worse this gets? I don't know.

Not to be even more overdramatic, but I start to worry that my 40 before 40 list could be a legit bucket list.

How would a rural mom who hasn't been able to afford to travel since October contract COVID-19?

• From a friend who travels internationally and has been sick for two months.
• From a friend who came back from a medical conference with a dry cough.
• From a family member who frequently travels to Asia, including right before Christmas.
• From someone who was in contact with someone who was in contact.... The average coronavirus carrier infects 50 people because the virus can take up to 14 days to be symptomatic IF it IS symptomatic.  The flu, by contrast, shows up in 2-3 days after exposure, so the number of people you infect is also much smaller (on average, 2 people).